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My Songbook

One Piece At A Time by Johnny Cash

Chords

Capo

1

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Tuning: Standard (E A D G B E)

Key: E

Difficulty: Novice


Intro:
E          A     B
B          E     E


Verse 1:
E
Well I left Kentucky back in '49
            A
And went to Detroit working on assembly line
    B7                                            E
The first year they had me putting wheels on Cadillac's

Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
    A
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
         B7                                     E
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black

Verse 2:

One day I devised myself a plan
            A
That should be the envy of most any man
    B7                                        E
I'd sneak it outta there in a lunch box in my hand

Now getting caught meant getting fired
      A
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
    B7                                     E
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand


Chorus:
                                      A
I'd get it one piece at a time and it wouldn't cost me a dime
       B7                                    E
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
                                         A
I'm gonna ride around in style I'm gonna drive everybody wild
       B7                              E
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around


Verse 3:

So the very next day when I punched in
        A
With my big lunch box and with help from my friends
  B7                                     E
I left that day with a lunch-box full of gears

I've never considered myself a thief
    A
But GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
  B7                                       E
Especially if I strung it out over several years


Verse 4:

The first day I got me a fuel pump
        A
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
     B7                                  E
Then I got me a transmission and all the chrome

The little things I could get in my big lunch box
     A
Like nuts and bolts and all four shocks
B7                                                  E
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home


Verse 5:

Now up to now my plan went alright
        A
Till we tried to put it all together one night
    B7                                                   E
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong

The transmission was a '53
        A
And the motor turned out to be a '73
    B7                                                   E
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone


Verse 6:

So we drilled it out so that it would fit
                  A
And with a little bit of help from an adapter kit
   B7                                  E
We had that engine running just like a song

Now the headlights they was another sight
       A
We had two on the left and one on the right
    B7                                                  E
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on


Verse 7:

The back end looked kind of funny too
       A
But we put it together and when we got through
     B7                                               E
Well that's when we noticed that we only had one tail fin

About that time my wife walked out
            A
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
        B7                                           E
But she opened the door and said honey take me for a spin


Verse 8:

So we drove uptown just to get the tags
      A
And I headed her right on down main drag
        B7                                 E
I could hear everybody laughing for blocks around

But up there at the courthouse they didn't laugh
         A
Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
         B7                                       E
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds


Chorus:
                                   A
I got it one piece at a time and it wouldn't cost me a dime
      B7                                    E
You'd know it's me when I come through your town
                                         A
I'm gonna ride around in style I'm gonna drive everybody wild
            B7                          E
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around


Ourtro Spoken:
E
Ah yeah Red Rider this is the Cottonmouth
E
In the Psychobilly Cadillac come on
E
Oh this is the Cottonmouth and negatory
E
On the cost of this machine there Red Rider
E
You might say I went right up to the factory and picked it up
E
It's cheaper that way...
E
Ah what model it is?

E                               A
Well it's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56
B7                 E
'57 '58' 59' Automobile
                           A
It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
B7                  E
'68, '69, '70 Automobile